Standings

The graphics next to each team are called “sparklines.” They depict each team’s performance over the last month. Each “up” bar is a victory and a “down” bar is a loss. There are horizontal lines for home games and red bars represent games decided by two runs or less. “PWins” is short for Projected Wins, based on each team’s Run Differential, and is often a better measure of a team’s true strength. Other team graphs and stats can be found on our Team Page.

Game of the Day

Not even Chris Carpenter, the ace of the Cardinals’ staff, could stop the Redbirds’ spiraling descent. St. Louis lost their seventh game in a row, 7-5 to San Diego, and they now hold a scant one-and-a-half game lead in the NL Central over Houston (who beat the Pirates 7-4). One week ago, that lead was seven games. The Cardinals’ seven straight losses are one short of the major league record for consecutive losses by a first-place team in September (the Angels lost eight in a row in 1995).

The Padres scored four runs in the seventh inning, capped by Mike Cameron’s two-run double, as they maintained their two-game lead in the NL West over the Dodgers. Ronnie Belliard hit two home runs for St. Louis.

Yesterday’s Home Runs

The following stats are provided by Hit Tracker, which logs the projected distance of each home run (if it were to land uninterrupted at field level) and its “standard” distance, which is corrected for weather conditions. You can read their daily updates at the Hit Tracker Blog.

Player News

Ryan Zimmerman drove in three runs for the Nats, raising his season total to 107, the most by a rookie since Albert Pujols drove in 130 in 2001. Ryan Howard drove in one run for the Phillies, but that’s all it took to set a new National League record for sophomores (146). Chuck Klein had 145 runs batted in in 1929. (Source: Elias)

Chase Utley’s shot down the right-field line that was ruled foul — but replays showed should have been called fair — was a key part of Philadelphia’s 4-3 loss to the Washington Nationals on Tuesday night, though the Phillies had other reasons to be disappointed in themselves, too.

Javier Vazquez struck out 12 batters but allowed six runs over seven innings in Chicago’s 6-0 loss to the Indians, a microcosm of Vazquez’s month. In five starts during September, Vazquez struck out 50 batters, but posted an 0-3 record. Only three other pitchers during the live-ball era recorded 50 strikeouts in a month without earning a victory. The others were Pedro Martinez (0-1, 55 SO in May 2006), Kerry Wood (0-3, 55 SO in August 2002), and Randy Johnson (0-2, 59 SO in September 1992). (Source: Elias)

Johan Santana all but wrapped up the unofficial Triple Crown for pitchers with his victory over the Royals on Wednesday night. Santana leads the majors in wins (19), ERA (2.77), and strikeouts (245). Only one pitcher has led the majors in all three categories in the same season since Sandy Koufax retired following the 1966 season: Dwight Gooden in 1985. Koufax did so three times over his last four seasons.

Moises Alou hit a game-winning home run in the ninth inning of the Giants’ 4-2 win over the Diamondbacks. It was Alou’s fifth walk-off homer in the last five seasons, to tie for the second most in the NL during that time behind Albert Pujols (7).

When Dusty Baker called for Jae-Kuk Ryu to pitch the ninth inning of the Cubs’ 14-6 win over the Brewers, it marked Chicago’s 522nd pitching change of the season, a new major league record. The previous mark was set by Felipe Alou’s Giants in 2004.

Since July 2, the Cubs (35-43) have a better record than the White Sox (34-44).

Placido Polanco drove in three runs in the Tigers’ 4-3 win over the Blue Jays, for a total of five RBI in two games after missing five weeks with a separated left shoulder.

On Monday, the Reds signed SS Juan Castro to a two-year contract extension.

THT Stats

Access all of THT’s stats here…

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Dave Studeman was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Follow his sporadic tweets @dastudes.